Critics pan spyware maker NSO’s transparency claims amid its push to enter US market
The infamous spyware maker released a new transparency report claiming to be a responsible spyware maker, without providing insight into how the company dealt with problematic customers in the past.
NSO Group, one of the most well-known and controversial makers of government spyware, released a new transparency report on Wednesday, as the company enters what it described as “a new phase of accountability.”
But the report, unlike NSO’s previous annual disclosures, lacks details about how many customers the company rejected, investigated, suspended, or terminated due to human rights abuses involving its surveillance tools. While the report contains promises to respect human rights and have controls to demand its customers do the same, the report provides no concrete evidence supporting either.
Experts and critics who have followed NSO and the spyware market for years believe the report is part of an effort and campaign by the company to get the U.S. government to remove the company from a blocklist — technically called the Entity List — as it hopes to enter the U.S. market with new financial backers and executives at the helm.
Last year, a group of U.S. investors acquired the company, and since then, NSO has been undergoing a transition that included high-profile personnel changes: former Trump official David Friedman was appointed the new executive chairman; CEO Yaron Shohat stepped down; and Omri Lavie, the last remaining founder who was still involved in the company, also left, as Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported.
“When NSO’s products are in the right hands within the right countries, the world is a far safer place. That will always be our overriding mission,” Friedman wrote in the report, which does not mention any country where NSO operates.
Natalia Krapiva, the senior tech-legal counsel at Access Now, a digital rights organization that investigates spyware abuses, told TechCrunch: “NSO is clearly on a campaign to get removed from the U.S. Entity List and one of the key things they need to show is that they have dramatically changed as a company since they were listed.”
“Changing the leadership is one part and this transparency report is another,” said Krapiva.
“However, we have seen this before with NSO and other spyware companies over the years where they change names and leadership and publish empty transparency or ethics reports but the abuses continue.”